Mass Gifts

 I discovered something yesterday afternoon:

I’ve been giving small gifts to staff members ever since I started teaching.

I didn’t realize it had been that long!

 

It started with a simple suede/bead keychain for one school staff during Christmas 1999.

I wanted to do something for everyone, but I knew I didn’t have the money to do something big.

The next year, it changed to a penny and expanded to two school staffs,

Then an inch, a pill bottle, a gem, a card, a puzzle piece, and a bookmark.

 

I stopped teaching for a few years,

But as soon as I started again,

I restarted the mass gift giving,

Only this time,

Because school morale was so low,

I extended the gift-giving throughout the year.

 

Since returning to the classroom in 2013,

I have given cloth squares, magnets, nuts, candy, yogurt glasses, poker chips, Jenga blocks, starfish, blackout poems, gum, fossils, stuffed bears, buttons, river rocks, tin squares, bubble wrap,

And as of today, old medicine bottles filled with a tiny tin heart.  

 

Now, I don’t write any of this to toot my own horn.

I write it simply because I’m surprised at myself…

And because it’s nice to remember sometimes.

It’s nice to remember and pray for the people I used to work with.

And it’s nice to think of and pray for the people I work with now.

 

Today’s gift came with a very simple message:

One of my friends once said that the State Healthcare Plan should pass out free blood pressure and anxiety medicine to all school employees 😊. While she said this jokingly, there is some truth to the fact that our jobs are stressful and anxiety-ridden and that they don’t always allow time for self-care. While I cannot prescribe the medicines about which she was speaking, I can prescribe the greatest medicine in the world: Love. May this year be full of love for your students, their families, your coworkers, your family, yourself, your work, and the Greater Purpose to which you serve. May you take your daily dose of love, and may that love carry you through. “And now these three remain: Faith, Hope, and Love. The greatest of which is Love.”

 

I pray that for you, too, friend.

However I know you—

From whenever our paths have crossed—

I pray Love for you today and in all the days to come.

Amen.